The Great Glass Sea (39 page)

Sitting there, beside his brother again, Dima could feel it. Not only the way that life had tried to carry them apart, but how far he had begun to drift himself. For a moment he was afraid to look at Yarik. He had missed his brother so much.

“I know,” Yarik said.

And Dima turned to see: in his brother’s face there was the same thing his brother had seen in his.

But, clearing his throat, Yarik tried to turn it into something else. “I know,” he said again, “that it must be hard. You must need money.”

“No,” Dima told him.

“For my brother, my mother, I can find—”

“All your brother wants,” Dima said, “is that you save.” And, saying it, he knew it was true. All he wanted was to live life beside his brother. And all they needed to do it was the farm. “Save, bratan, so we can—”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Yarik said. “By now,
you
must have gone through so much of what
you’d
saved. If you’d only kept working, if you still had your half . . .”

“I have it.” Dima set his glass down. He lifted his bony hips, reached into his back pocket, drew out a folded bit of cloth. “I haven’t touched it.” Inside there was a handful of half-smoked cigarettes sallow in the mirror-light. He picked through the pile for the longest stub, found it, put it to his lips, and, cupping the remaining butts in his palm, offered the clothful to Yarik.

His brother looked at it. Dima followed the glance. The stubs were shaking. Then Yarik’s hand cupped Dima’s fingers, folded them closed around the cloth.

Setting his glass on his belly, Yarik reached into the pocket of his robe. He brought out his own pack of cigarettes, drew out two, gave one to Dima. Lighting a match, steadying his glass, he reached over. In Yarik’s fingers the flame shivered. Watching it, Dima inhaled, let go of the first smoke.

“Bratets,” Yarik said, “what
do
you eat?”

“Food.”

“How do you get it?”

“Mama’s apartment is full of things we don’t need.”

“And when you’re down to the things you do need?”

“Each thing that I get in trade,” Dima said, “I ask the farmers about. How to plant it. How to grow it.” His brother swapped the cigarette for his glass, looked at him over the rim. “We already know most of it from when we were boys.”

“Dima,” Yarik said, “how long do you plan to survive on a dream?”

They sat with their cigarettes burning down in their fingers.

“I have a boy now,” Yarik told him. “A daughter. A wife. You think I can support them by trading things?”

“You don’t even have to trade for most of it,” Dima told him. “Most I just find.”

“Oh,” Yarik said, like the word had gone through him and cramped somewhere inside. He drew on the cigarette and sighed the smoke out and then reached down and ground the stub against the roof. “You’re feeding our mother off trash.” He handed the stub to Dima. “You want me to feed my family on trash?”

Dima took the stub and ground his own out and drew the cloth out of his pocket and wrapped the two in it and put the cloth back, and while he did his brother watched him, and while watching him Yarik drained his glass.

“Before the Oranzheria—” Dima started.

“We were kids,” Yarik cut him off. “Now we’re not.” He waited while Dima took a drink from his half-full glass. Then he reached to the bottle and unscrewed the top and poured it for himself. “It’s part of growing up, bratets.” He poured Dima’s glass full, too. “It’s the way the world—”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Dima said. “It didn’t used to be. It wasn’t the way the old mir worked.”

“The mir?”

“It wasn’t how Dyadya Avya worked.”

“The mir of the peasants from centuries ago?”

“On Dyadya Avya’s—”

“On Dyadya Avya’s we lived like animals. On the mir, they—”

“And why not?” Dima’s hand jerked with the words, the vodka spilling onto his fingers. “Animals
like
their work. A heron likes to fish.”

“What is this,” Yarik said, “something you picked up from the people you’ve been hanging around with?”

“A bear . . .”

“Dima . . .”

“. . . to hunt.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Squirrels—”

“Right,” Yarik said, “I’m sure squirrels fucking love to collect nuts. But we’re not squirrels, bratets.” He took a slug from his glass. “I mean, Dima, look at us. Look at fucking
them
.” He waved a hand at the zerkala above. “We’re not wild animals. We’re fucking house cats. And you know what a house cat wants? To sit on its ass and lap from a bowl of
milk. A bowl someone else has brought for it. But if there’s nobody to bring the bowl? Until we make enough money to pay someone to bring it, bratets, we can’t just do what we want.” He set his glass down on his armrest with a dull clank.

Slowly Dima drank his empty, too. Then he reached down and unscrewed the cap on the bottle and refilled his brother’s glass, refilled his. “If we could just buy the farm,” he told Yarik, “we
could
work at what we want, we’d—”

“We’d what?” Yarik said. “Plow up the old fields? Grow some flax? Some turnips? Spend all day hunched over with a hoe like Dyadya Avya? Do you think he
liked
pulling turnips? Do you think those farmers you talk to, are they, with their backs bent from a life of it, do you think they’re happy?”

“I think they’re happier than us.”

“Not for long.”

Dima looked at his brother, the vodka stinging on his lip.

“These farmers,” Yarik went on. “They’re in the old market?”

“Yeah.”

“And what do they sell? What do they have left that can grow? Who can grow it? A few so far out they’re not yet affected by the zerkala? A few who scratch together enough to buy their seeds from the Consortium? And the rest? A few cucumbers that don’t need the dark? A few onions? It’s not like Dyadya Avya’s anymore, Dima.”

“If they can—”

“How many? How many are there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not as many as there used to be.”

“No.”

“Not nearly. Next year there will be none. Every month it pushes out another kilometer.
I
push it out another kilometer. Another hundred hectares of fields. How can they compete? Bratishka, how could you?”

“We—”

“No,” Yarik said. “No.” He drank, swallowed. “It has to stop.”

The glass on Dima’s thigh felt too heavy for him to lift it off. “What?” he said.

“What other people must think,” Yarik told him. “When they see you digging through the trash. When they see you riding the bus like a bum all day long.”

“I’m not a bum.”

“Like a beggar.”

“I don’t beg,” Dima told him.

“And you think that would keep you out of The Dachas?” Yarik slugged back the rest of his drink. “Do you ever wonder why you haven’t been put there yet?”

“Why would they put me there?”

“Why
wouldn’t
they?”

“I don’t think—”

“
I
do,” Yarik said. “Zina does. Because we know what would happen without the six thousand roubles I pay the police to keep you out.”

Dima sat silent.

“Each month,” Yarik said. He slid his gaze to Dima, his glass squeezed in his fist. “I know what you’re thinking now.”

“Six thousand roubles a month.”

“And it’s not ‘thank you.’”

“Yarik,” Dima nearly whispered, “have you managed to save anything at all?”

The glass banged down on the rooftop. “
That
”—Yarik let go, as if it had broken—“is what has to stop.”

Again, Dima drained his glass. He watched Yarik over the rim, and then through the empty bottom, and then he set the glass on the concrete beside his brother’s. Looking at the two glasses standing still and empty there, he said, as slowly as he’d drunk, “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying . . .” Yarik clenched his empty hand, let it fall open. “When you say the difference between us and animals, Dima, is that they get their joy from their work, that we get none, I’m saying maybe they get their
purpose
from it, bratets. Maybe their purpose gives them joy. Maybe, bratets, maybe it just turns out you and I . . .”

“You’re saying you’re not a bum.”

“Maybe we’re just different kinds of animals.” Yarik’s eyes stayed closed. He waited, as if for Dima to speak, and when he did—“You think your brother’s a bum”—Yarik reached for the vodka. Beneath his fingers, the glass rattled.

“But I’m not.” Dima sat there, staring at his brother. Then, slowly, body stiff with the effort, raised one leg, held his foot up off the footrest of the chair. “See?” he said, and his voice, shaking like Yarik’s cup, made of the word a command. “I even found some old shoes to fix up.” The boot stuck there, tape around its sole, motionless in the air between them. “And you know,” Dima said, “beggars don’t need shoes.”

Yarik stared at his brother’s foot the way Dima was staring at him. Then, emitting a small squeezed groan, he leaned forward off his chair. He put his hand on Dima’s foot and, for a moment, rested it there. He looked like he was going to say something to the boot. But he just pushed it, gently, back onto the footrest. And filled their glasses again. And when he was again sitting back beside Dima, he said,“Do you know what would have happened if I had helped you?”

“It’s OK,” Dima said.

“No,” Yarik said. “No, it’s not. Even while I was standing there, not helping you, even then I knew it wasn’t OK, and I hated myself, I fucking hate myself for standing there, and still, I know, I know that if I had, if you understood that—”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t care about—”

“
I
care,” Yarik said. “Dima, today I took the number six. I had to get it half an hour earlier because I had to transfer to the number three.” He looked like he would take a drink, but his hand simply rose and fell and never reached his mouth. He said, “I have to transfer to the three because you’re not on it.”

Dima reached over and touched his brother for the first time since they had come up on the roof. He put his hand on Yarik’s forearm. His thumb rubbed lightly at the softness of his brother’s arm hair. “I know,” he said, “like every day the past two weeks.” He smiled a small smile. “But it will be OK now. I’ve stopped going to the square. I’ve stopped reciting the poem. I won’t see any of those people anymore. Nobody. Just my bratets.” He let his fingers squeeze his brother’s wrist a little tighter. And when Yarik’s other hand pressed down on his, Dima shut his eyes. So it was a motion he felt more than saw—the weight of both their hands, Yarik’s fingers stilling Dima’s thumb, then the breath of air beneath his own palm—when his brother lifted Dima’s hand off. But he opened his eyes in time to see the small shaking of Yarik’s head.

Somewhere, a flock of geese was flying. Yarik turned away, as if to look for them.

“You’re right,” Dima said, “I don’t understand.”

“I know.” Still looking up at the sky, Yarik ran a hand through his short, wet hair. “That’s the problem.” He ran it back again towards his forehead, and in the light of the mirrors his hair sprayed a fine mist over his fingers and dampened his forehead and there were tiny drops glinting on the hairs of his eyebrows, on his lashes, when he closed his eyes. “You know who lived like an animal?” he said. “Papa.”

“He was happy,” Dima said.

Yarik breathed hard through his nose. “Mama was so miserable. We were so hungry. Selfish!” His whole brow jerked: a mist of fine drops shed. “How could he have been so selfish, Dima?” Then he opened his eyes and took a drink and swallowed, and when he was done, he said, “Today, I went to the Oranzheria to quit.”

Dima’s throat closed down to a whisper: “Because of me?”

Yarik finished his drink, set the glass down so carefully it made no noise at all on the roof. “I didn’t,” he said, and poured himself another glass. “Quit.” He said the word as if it was a joke of a word, and drank, and said, “Hired as foreman the day before
you
quit. And as manager the day
I
try to.”

“They’re going to make you a manager?”

“Maybe,” Yarik said. Then he said, “Yes.” He stared up at the sky, as if still searching for the geese among the mirror gleam. “Unless I say no.”

“Why would you say no?”

The breath he let out seemed to take half the weight of his body with it. And the way his body sank into the chair it seemed what was left was still too much. “Listen to them,” he said. “Do you think they navigate by the stars? What if they navigate by the stars?” Then he dropped his chin and cleared his throat and took a drink again and looked at his brother and said, “It’s just temporary.”